7.02.2014

Make do vs. make due & Without further ado vs. further adieu

The copy editor is in.
I'm presenting occasional posts on the use of English,
not to be pedantic but just for the fun of language.

This is one of those times when people try to make things harder than they are. We have certain words in our language that are just so plain that apparently they beg for spicing up.

The phrase "make do" means to manage with what you've got. You don't have to add a fancy "due" to make do with the original.

"Due" is mainly used to indicate that something is owed, which doesn't make sense in this construction.
Another related and commonly confused pair is seen in "without further ado." Maybe it's because we don't use "ado" so much nowadays, but it's just your simple three-letter word. Let it be. "Without further ado" means without additional fuss (i.e., ado — see also Much Ado About Nothing). "Adieu" is French for goodbye. So would the phrase in that way mean "without further goodbye"? It doesn't make sense to Frenchify it.

Can you think of other examples of a simple "do" becoming overly complicated? Perhaps we'll soon see hairdues? Or deux and don'ts?